3 Community Building Strategies for Your Virtual Learning Meeting (Atomic Essay 5)

Anyone would understand how challenging it is to connect to people in a virtual meeting when you just met them. We know small talk is not authentic. Often, facilitators would create "icebreaker" questions that include people's names, roles, and an experience question like something they have done over a break. Here is an alternative thinking. I recommend that we intentionally don't use the word icebreaker, as we want to focus on positives and strengths of the group. I create what I call community building questions, questions that would not create envy or differences between participants. Everyone should feel equipped to respond to these questions. Some examples include:

• What is your favorite comfort food you make?
• Which book had the most impact on you?
• If you were to take a historical figure to a week-long vacation, who would this be and where would you take them?

Another challenge to build connection is the assumptions people make about each other, and feeling insecure about their own presence and contributions to the meeting. Bringing people together across all walks of life to focus on learning together around books and ideas requires leveling the playfield for all. A strategy to ensure this happens is asking people to share their name and where they are from, along with the community building questions and not their job or role, or their education. This way, we are able to focus on ideas and thinking, and not people's roles or jobs.

Finally, with a group larger than 20, we may consider creating break out rooms for community building questions to allow small group conversations in building personal connections before the meeting agenda. In the next essay, I will discuss ways to build engagement among participants during the meeting. Which strategies would you like to try so far? See the links below for the other essays and let me know what resonated with you.

For Atomic Essay #1 https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/3-reasons-why-online-learning-communities-heavens-1-zeynep-iyese/?trackingId=qw1l75z%2BS3qaiK3pVhVGdw%3D%3D

For Atomic Essay #2 https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/3-ways-join-create-virtual-learning-communities-essay-zeynep-plkfe/?trackingId=i2ao8sTlREal%2Bol2BcUdVg%3D%3D

For Atomic Essay #3 https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/3p-framework-clarity-finding-right-audience-first-3-zeynep-mqzme/?trackingId=nPxZ0PfKQBK9w%2FjzXo%2F%2BUQ%3D%3D

For Atomic Essay #4 https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/how-set-your-virtual-learning-community-meeting-essay-zeynep-fpdoe/trackingId=bYpHc6VnQZaoKrsNaNGSjA%3D%3D